Tending the Golden Goose
So the Irish Anti-Smoker Industry has its collective snout back in the trough again?
It wants a levy placed on the tobacco companies profits and an extra 50 cent tax on cigarettes?
Dick Puddlecote has already demolished the logic of these moves but I would have a couple of questions of my own.
First of all, I would like to ask Goodie O'Meara what she thinks about the extortionate profits made by her paymasters in Big Pharma. Tobacco profits pale into insignificance when it comes to the pharmacutical industry yet I don't hear any call for their profits to be taxed? This is an industry that kills 115,000 people a year in Ireland [if Tobacco Control can pluck figures out of their arse then so can I] and make staggering profits yet we never hear mention of taxes on them? This is the industry that produces "cures" and then places such a massive profit margin on them that the sick and dying can't afford them. €80,000 to treat one patient? What kind of profit margin do we have here? It would be cheaper to make the pills out of pure 24 carat gold, yet they somehow escape the wrath of the Puritans?
They want a 50 cent increase in the price of fags. Only 50c? If they were really serious they would demand a tax level that would price 20 fags at around the €100 mark, but then you see, they would instantly stop all [legitimate] purchases and they would be out of the game. No more fat salaries for Tobacco Control. No more trough feeding. They would be out of a job. It would also be a loss to the gubmint of €1.1 billion a year in lost excise and VAT.
These people are clever. The don't want to kill the Golden Goose, so they pluck feathers out of it one at a time. They have to achieve a very delicate balance. They don't want smokers to quit as then they would be out of a job. They need smokers to provide the revenue and the excuse for their own existence. They are quite open about this in their claim that any extra tax should be diverted to "helping smokers quit" or to put it in other words, into their pockets. Also they want to divert massive funding to Big Pharma by providing "free" Nicotine Replacement Therapy [i.e. Big Pharma’s useless patches, gum and inhalers] which is, when all is said and done, why Big Pharma pays a fair chunk of their payroll.
When you look at their budget proposals, there is little mention of health or cessation. All you see is demand for more and more money for their greedy little gravy train.
These cunts don't give a flying fuck about smokers or cancer.
All they are interested in is their well paid jobs.
Well said.
You have to hand it to them, they've won. Nobody (except smokers/nicotine users) can see the scam for what it is.
Looks like they'll get away with it. Hell isn't bad enough for them.
I'm sure the government will question the tax increases though, with the huge black market for fags as it is.
All these Irish tobacco controllers are incredibly ignorant and know nothing about the subject. Mention snus to them and they'll never have heard about it.
If there is any justice in the universe Kathleen O Meara and the like will reap what they sow. I'm not holding my breath for it though.
Such a goodie, fighting the evil tobacco companies, no one can see her for the corrupt stuck up and predatory twat that she really is.
You have to hand it to them, they've won.
Not yet, they haven't. And I think that e-cigs are going to be their downfall. The lies are starting to be obvious and schisms within the movement are appearing.
I hope you're right.
I'd love to see the downfall of the corrupt anti smoking movement in my time.
They've caused a lot of damage to a lot of people – pubs, retailers, smokers, the taxpayer – so there is some hope especially with the stance that many of them have taken towards e cigs.
The big problem now is that somehow they have managed to brainwash a whole generation into the idea that somehow passive smoke is deadly. That is going to take some undoing?
But that's why I think e-cigs will be their undoing – they have been busy trying the same bullshit about second-hand steam, which is palpable nonsense, even to someone who has swallowed the SHS propaganda, and I think as a result people are waking up to the fact that they lie about stuff. Once the seed of doubt is planted, it's difficult to convince people that you're telling the truth.
Although I have an e-cig which I use sometimes, I'm a tobacco man myself. But I'm right behind the e-cig movement, even though I disagree with a lot of the things they say in justification of their choice, because e-cigs are undermining the demonstrably friable foundations of Tobacco Control. And the anti-smokers are helping in their own demise because their implacable hatred of all things smoking blinds them to the fact that their antipathy towards e-cigs exposes them for the hypocrites that they are.
I have noticed the birth of that new breed – pro-vaper, anti-smoker – which is doing nobody any favours. There should be no concessions in the fight against Puritanism. Being pro e-cigs but anti-smoking is yielding ground and conceding that it is quite OK to ban anything [provided it isn't e-cigs].
Puritanism in any form is population control and an insult to liberty. There should be no concessions.
Yes, they're just desperate to be accepted back into the fold of polite society, and polite society has been indoctrinated into hating smokers. So now they vape, rather than smoke, they're only too eager to throw smokers under the bus in their bid for acceptance.
I had no idea of what a huge scam the anti smoking movement is until I quit smoking and switched to vaping.
I found incredulous that they would be so opposed to vaping. Once I scratched beneath the surface I can see what wasters they are. And not harmless wasters, tax sponging bigots that have divided society for the benefit of their own pockets.
I can assure you that vapers are generally treated exactly the same as smokers. I had a woman move out of the way on the street to avoid my cloud of steam recently, while giving me a dirty look. I was told in a bar that I wasn't allowed to smoke inside, by a customer, even though the bar owner permitted it, and an argument ensued. No peace for the nicotine user.
A lot of ex smoking vapers have had similar experiences and self shame by going outside.
We are also asked "but when are you going to give up that?"
I usually say politely that I'm not too worried about it, while silently thinking "fuck off and mind your own business"
Vapers are all ex smokers so we're used of the bullshit.
If they try to bring in a vaping ban we will put up a big fight and expose the scroungers for what they are. I know they have been thinking about it but they might not have the balls for it after the Public Health England report.
Meanwhile let them continue to hand over the cigarette market to the IRA, and fill their own snouts with tax payer cash.